The Siege of Lordaeron

On Tuesday we got the conclusion to the three week pre-patch event leading into the new expansion. After last week’s disappointing amount of content, and the sheer confusion and anger seen from the playerbase, I tried my best to not get my hopes up. But with the Siege came a really cool scenario, one I was hoping for all along, and we also got several new cinematics all of which I thought were very well done. We got the excited, fist-bumping moment when Jaina road in to help the Alliance on a flying ship. Not just any flying ship, but the same ship she raised from under the sea, which was also her father’s ship many years ago. While I don’t have many pictures from the scenario itself, I recorded the whole thing which turned out to be twenty minutes. Because I’m having so much fun editing videos and posting them here, I’ll probably try to trim the clip down and remove the cut scenes. What I did do is make a short video of me exploring Tirisfal Glades and the aftermath of the battle.

Being able to fly all the way to Tirisfal and know that the whole place will probably be Alliance controlled next expansion made me giddy. There’s just something about playing through Warcraft 3 and seeing Arthas start the chain of events that led to Lordaeron’s downfall, and then being there in-game to see the Alliance reclaim it. I mean, sort of. As you can see, the whole blight thing is kind of a problem but I’m sure something can be done about that, right? I didn’t even have to add music to this video because the in-game music is awesome, and I’m not sure if it was always there but I’m assuming that it’s new.

If you were watching Blizzcon 2017 or keeping up to date with WoW news, you already knew that Lordaeron was going to be made uninhabitable. We didn’t know exactly how it was going to play out, but we knew that Alliance wouldn’t be getting a new hub. At least not yet! But even though I knew walking in to the scenario that Sylvanas was going to plague bomb the city, it was still shocking to watch. And if you have played through the scenario on the Horde side, you can see that even the other Horde leaders are surprised too.

I am still confused about Sylvanas’ actions, but there is no denying the toll those actions have taken on both the Alliance and Horde. It still seems to me that her motives have not been made clear yet. I could be overthinking the whole thing because I don’t like the direction Sylvanas has been going lately. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that the tragic character who has been through so much bad stuff is actually acting evil. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised when she orders the blight to be spread even though Horde soldiers are still on the battlefield, only to raise them in undeath. But something about it doesn’t seem convincing enough to me. Sylvanas has never been a one-dimensional character, she has always been multi-faceted right from the start. The story of how she failed to save Quel’Thalas from the Scourge and took those emotions with her into undeath always intrigued me. Yet Blizzard keeps telling us to be patient, and the expansion isn’t even out yet so it’s probably too early to be drawing any conclusions.

Overall, I really enjoyed the scenario. I loved the cinematics and the thrill of seeing Jaina,  and seeing Anduin starting to grow into his duties as King. Something else that I liked, but wasn’t expecting, was the short exchange between Saurfang and Anduin. I was terrified that we were going to be forced to kill him, but instead he was taken away to the Sormwind Stockades (probably not for long). Anduin respects Saurfang and his values, which is why I think Anduin is going to help Saurfang usurp Sylvanas and become Warchief. Much in the same way the Alliance had a hand in helping Vol’jin become the Warchief. I think that would be a really smart move for the Alliance, and definitely for the longevity of the Horde. After all, we only have to wait four days to see where the story takes us.